Retired General Barry McCaffrey sits on the board of a giant defense contractor, DynCorp, and lobbies for war.

And many other "pundits" interviewed by the mainstream news are really high-level lobbyists for giant companies, pushing their agendas.

And yet they are treated as "independent experts" by the media.

Indeed - 2 years after Jones asked the large networks why they don't have a disclaimer on the screen beneath the pundits' names saying who they really work for - nothing has been done.

The corporate media are acting like virtual "escort services" for the powerful, selling access - for a price - to viewers and to powerful government officials, instead of actually investigating and reporting on what those in power are actually doing.

"The corporate media are acting like virtual "escort services".... instead of actually investigating and reporting on what those in power are actually doing."

Investigate? Report? Are you kidding? That's heavy sh*t, man. That's likely to get your head blown off. Didn't you see what happened to Kennedy when he crossed the CIA and their buddies in the military-industrial complex?

Best just to let Back and Hannity mouth off, cover the Oscars and interview Coulter like she was a real person, that's what passes for political debate in the US, but hey, it's a living and at least it's safe.

What “news” is not: a noble institution established for the dissemination of information, with the explicit purpose of preventing obfuscation by either the government or industry

What “news” is: a factually verified, though not necessarily objectively true, historical narrative about current events, which occasionally prevents corporate or government abuses of power, but just as often makes a big deal out of nothing particularly harmful to anyone.

News is a product, like anything else: it gets produced because there is a demand for it. If there was no demand, it wouldn’t be news. The primary source of revenue for a news organization is advertising revenue. Advertisers want to target certain demographic groups, and so they exert retrograde editorial influence over the news produced (the job of an editor is to decide what gets printed and what doesn’t—and you can be sure he’s not going to print stories which alienate the sensibilities of his clients’ target demographics).

Most people read the news because it’s entertaining, engaging and informative. They don’t read news which is offensive to them or disagrees with their pre-formed political or religious ideologies. So writers and editors ensure that the news that gets printed is that which amuses their readers and reinforces their beliefs, rather than reporting things which may be important to good public oversight but which are boring/controversial. That’s why Michael Jackson gets to the front page, but news about the gutting of the EPA’s regulatory power by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 got pushed to page 18—no one wanted to hear about it. If you want news which is more responsible, we the readers need to start demanding it, and not just with our mouths. Complaining about a news service just verifies you were watching, which is the whole thing news agencies, and their advertisers, wanted in the first place. If you really want to change things, change the channel.

What “news” is not: a noble institution established for the dissemination of information, with the explicit purpose of preventing obfuscation by either the government or industry

What “news” is: a factually verified, though not necessarily objectively true, historical narrative about current events, which occasionally prevents corporate or government abuses of power, but just as often makes a big deal out of nothing particularly harmful to anyone.

News is a product, like anything else: it gets produced because there is a demand for it. If there was no demand, it wouldn’t be news. The primary source of revenue for a news organization is advertising revenue. Advertisers want to target certain demographic groups, and so they exert retrograde editorial influence over the news produced (the job of an editor is to decide what gets printed and what doesn’t—and you can be sure he’s not going to print stories which alienate the sensibilities of his clients’ target demographics).

Most people read the news because it’s entertaining, engaging and informative. They don’t read news which is offensive to them or disagrees with their pre-formed political or religious ideologies. So writers and editors ensure that the news that gets printed is that which amuses their readers and reinforces their beliefs, rather than reporting things which may be important to good public oversight but which are boring/controversial. That’s why Michael Jackson gets to the front page, but news about the gutting of the EPA’s regulatory power by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 got pushed to page 18—no one wanted to hear about it. If you want news which is more responsible, we the readers need to start demanding it, and not just with our mouths. Complaining about a news service just verifies you were watching, which is the whole thing news agencies, and their advertisers, wanted in the first place. If you really want to change things, change the channel.

“This is a newspaper. It's 90 per cent bullshit, but it's entertaining. That's why I read it, because it entertains me.”

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